SEXty-nine nights of a Girl

Everything began with Adam

Samra lounged in her well-loved armchair, one leg casually slung over the armrest, the other folded beneath her. Her gaze ping-ponged from her phone to the enigmatic artwork on her wall, skimmed over the untouched stack of bills on her coffee table, and finally returned to her phone's screen.

"Hey, I had a great time last ni-"

Her thumb hovered uncertainly over the keyboard. Had last night been as fun as she initially thought? Well, yeah-in a complicated, jigsaw puzzle kind of way. There were pieces of laughter, snippets of genuine connection, and brief flashes when she felt-what exactly? Desired? Understood? The memories felt scattered and elusive.

Just then, her phone buzzed to life. "It's a match!" proclaimed the dating app notification. Almost reflexively, she tapped it open and soon found herself engrossed in flirty banter with Adam, a globetrotting blogger obsessed with exotic plants. He was a fresh, intriguing distraction, effectively relegating her date from the previous night-Tom? Tim?-to a dusty corner of her memory.

Time seemed to fold in on itself. Adam was captivating, but so was the black hole of YouTube videos she tumbled into, leading her eventually to an Instagram oasis of succulent care tips. Before she knew what she was doing, she had added three new leafy companions to her crowded windowsill.

Another buzz snapped her back to reality.

"Hey, you disappeared. Everything okay?" read a text from her date the night before, punctuated with a puzzled emoji. A pang of guilt twisted in her gut.

Ah, yes. The half-written text hangs like a sentence without a period. These unfinished conversations, these emotional loose ends, were a recurring theme in Samra's life. Her phone was a digital cemetery, and each incomplete chat was a tombstone, Adam in what could have been.

Surveying her cluttered apartment, Samra sighed. Her ADHD was both her superpower and her kryptonite: the source of her effervescent charm, her spontaneous flair, her endlessly rotating interests-but also, perhaps, the reason her relationships felt more like a series of 'almosts' than a roster of 'definites'.

As she mulled over this, her phone buzzed again. It was Adam.

"So, are you free this weekend?"

Her thumb lingered over the keyboard, hesitation settling in. The thrill of something new tempted her, but a newfound self-awareness also weighed her down. She yearned for a connection deeper than a fleeting thrill, but the question lingered: Could she navigate the swirling chaos within her long enough to find it?

Samra was a paradox in human form. Her deep brown eyes were radiant with warmth and kindness, yet perpetually restless, as though searching for an elusive sense of tranquillity. Her rich, chestnut curls framed her face like a regal crown, but she often swept them back into a messy bun, as if trying to hide their splendour.

Physically, Samra was a modern-day Venus, a celebration of curves that artists throughout history would have adored. Yet, she dressed in high-waisted jeans and flowing tops, clever fashion choices designed to shield the areas she felt self-conscious about. She absorbed sunlight like a flower but couldn't shake the feeling that she also absorbed judgment. She struggled silently with body image, haunted by it in dressing rooms, at the beach, and during intimate moments. In those instances, she felt like Samra-plus-her-flaws, doubly flawed due to her sporadic brain.

But what she failed to see was how her vibrant mind, constantly leaping from one thought to another, didn't just drain her mentally but emotionally too. Amid the constant flip-flopping between interests and emotional states, she rarely confronted her deeper insecurities.

Yet the world saw Samra as magnetic. Her sometimes chaotic energy had a certain allure that drew people in and made them want to be part of her unpredictable narrative. This captivating aura often got lost in translation, obscured by her skewed perception of herself.